“But tell me, have you nice rooms--is there a nice woman to look after you?” Kate would say. “If you don’t answer me I shall have to go and see them some day when you are at the bank. I will say you are my--cousin, or something. Or perhaps if I were to tell the truth,” she added, softly, with her favourite trick, almost leaning her head against his arm, “it would interest her, and she would take more pains.” “And what would you say if you said the truth?” said foolish John. Poor fellow! this was all he had for his sacrifice, and naturally he longed for his hire, such as it was. “I should say, of course, that you were a nearer one still, and a dearer one,” said Kate, with a soft little laugh; “what else? but oh, John, is it not very different? That dear Fanshawe Regis, and your mother, and everything you have been used to. Is it not very, very different?” she cried, expecting that he would tell her how much more blessed were his poor lodgings and close work when brightened by the hope of her. “Yes, it is very different,” he said, in a dreamy, dreary tone. The summer was stealing on; it was August by this time, and the days were shortening. And it was almost dark, as dark as a summer night can be, when they strayed about the garden in the High Street, which was so different from the Rectory garden. There were few flowers, but at the farther end some great lime-trees, old and vast, which made the gravel-path look like a woodland road for twenty paces or so. She could not see his face in the dark, but there was in his voice nothing of that inflection which promised a flattering end to the sentence. Kate was a little chilled, she did not know why. “But you don’t--grudge it?” she said, softly. “Oh, John, there is something in your voice--you are not sorry you have done so much?--for nothing but _me_?” “Sorry!” he said, stooping over her--“sorry to be called into life when I did not know I was living! But, Kate, if it were not for _this_, that is my reward for everything, I will not deny that there is a great difference. I should have been working upon men the other way; and one gets contemptuous of money. Never mind, I care for nothing while I have you.” “I never knew any one that was contemptuous of money,” said Kate, gravely; “people here say money can do everything. That is why I want you to be rich.” “Dear,” he said, holding her close to him, “you don’t understand, and neither did I. I don’t think I shall ever be rich. How should I, a clerk in a bank? Your father does not show me any favour, and it is not to be expected he should. Who am I, that I should try to steal his child from him? Since I have been here, Kate, there are a great many things that I begin to understand----” “What?” she said, as he paused; raising in the soft summer dark her face to his.